WRAITH CASE STUDY AUGUSTA PINE #4
I bit my lip. There were many people in my life that I loved, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see them again. The thought of confronting them, seeing the disappointment in their faces … it made my stomach churn.
“Not always true,” I said quietly. “Sometimes, you can’t bear to see someone you love.”
“I don’t actually love Marco,” said Steve. “I just think he’s really hot.” He stared at me and Keiko beseechingly. “I mean, have you seen him?”
“The point is,” said Leo, “is that if he goes to prison, he’ll never see Marco again. So I don’t think he did it.”
“You think Marco’s hotness is reason enough to discount him as a potential saboteur?” said Keiko.
“He is pretty hot,” I admitted.
Keiko shrugged. “I’m too ace to tell.”
“And besides,” said Leo. “Steve didn’t even know about the app.”
The app.
The app that wouldn’t have worked until someone activated the Wi-Fi function on the espresso machine.
I whirled on Leo. “You’ve been using the app to make your coffee, right?”
He nodded.
“When did you start doing that?” I asked.
“This morning,” said Leo. “I saw the QR code and used it to download the app. Then there was a switch to make it work on the coffee machine.”
We all gaped at Leo.
For a few moments, no one could speak.
“You,” I said, aghast. “You turned on the Wi-Fi capabilities. So you could make the app work.”
“Did I?” Leo rubbed at his chin.
“He did it,” cried Keiko. “He did it and he didn’t even know he did it.”
“Whoever sent that coffee machine must have figured someone in the office would be stupid enough to do it,” said Steve.
“Hey,” said Leo, “I’m not stupid. You’re always just yelling at me. Every time something goes wrong, it’s all, ‘Leo, why did you flood the bathrooms again? Leo, did you accidentally hit ‘reply all’ on that thread with the vice president? Leo, why is there bubble gum on the computers?’”
Steve glared at him. “Because you did all those things!”
“There’s no traitor,” I said. “Just a bunch of caffeine addicts and someone who wanted to use an app instead of walking forty feet to the kitchen.” I turned around, looking for Prefect and Centurion.
They were nowhere in sight—probably on the phone with the director, trying to sort out how to fix this.
“So what now?” said Keiko.
“The scanners would have picked up a bomb,” I said.
“I have to believe that. Maybe—maybe the countdown is a distraction. A way to make us panic and use the lockdown codes. I don’t know.
But we can’t let it continue.” I met the eyes of Leo, Keiko, and then Steve.
“We have to do what this office has been trying to do for years.”
“What?” asked Leo.
“We,” I said, “have to kill a coffee maker.”
EIGHT MINUTES REMAINING
“I’m not sure if this is going to work,” said Keiko. She held up a flashlight over the espresso machine. “Shouldn’t we get Prefect or Centurion?”
“No time,” I said. I pressed the ON button. Whatever internal battery it had was still fully powered. It whirred to life with a pleasant little mechanical tune. “Leo, did you get it?”
Leo bounded into the kitchen, holding a bottle. “Got it!” he said. He held up the vodka bottle proudly. “Harold keeps a stash in her desk. Maybe for her retirement party.”
“Or maybe this is why Herald’s being retired,” muttered Keiko. “And did you just call her ‘Harold’?”
“Isn’t that her name?” said Leo innocently.
I bounced on the balls of my feet, impatient. The espresso machine’s clock ticked down to four minutes. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to happen when it hit zero, but I wasn’t going to find out. “All right, pour it in.”
Leo dumped the vodka into the machine. “Now what?”
“Run it,” I said.
Keiko took a step back. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”
“Nope,” I said. “That’s why I asked you to get the fire extinguisher.”
Normally, the machine would have taken five minutes to boil the water. But vodka had a lower boiling temperature, and in perhaps two minutes, the machine began making ominous sounds.
This time, we all took a step back.
The machine spat and hissed, gurgled and protested, and then it produced a brown sludge that looked even worse than what the old coffee maker had given us. I took the cup with a grimace. “Now, where is—”
Steve skidded around the corner. “I got it,” he panted. “Here.”
I took the lighter.
“Now this,” I said, flicking it to life, “is how you destroy a coffee maker.” I lit the edge of a paper towel and dropped it into the water tank.
The remaining vodka ignited. I imagined that fire flaring through the pipes, all the way to the coffee grounds. Smoke burst forth from the joints, and illumination spilled across the floor. Keiko hefted the extinguisher higher, keeping it at the ready.
The clock flickered—numbers jolting back and forth. Then it went out.
When Prefect and Centurion came rushing into the kitchen, they found us standing around the smoking remnants of the Brewtiful Day espresso machine.
I handed Prefect the cup of brown vodka sludge. “I finally got your coffee,” I said.
A week later, the old coffee maker was dug out of the basement and returned to its place of honor.
No one ever sabotaged it again.